There Are a Lot of People in the World

     Billions of them, I hear. While spending vacation surrounded by large groups of people from all around the world, I came to a realization. Maybe everyone else has already realized this realization, but now I've finally caught on, and I want to share this: Everyone you see and walk past has their own life, their own fears and talents, their own pasts, their own hardships and heartaches, their own faults, their own families and friends, their own hopes and their own moments of complete happiness. Everyone you see, even if it's just passing by them in your car, has so much going on that you don't even know about, and then there are even more people that you don't come in contact with that have all that going on too. Even though we all have so many differences, we all have a lot more in common than we even know sometimes. It just blows my mind. I think if I remember this all the time, I will become a significantly better person.
     I also learned some other things on my vacation (which are not as life-changing, but nonetheless things I learned). I think it would be easiest to follow if I put them in a list under the title of "Things to do on Vacation"

"Things to do on Vacation"

• Don't joke about crashing in an airplane while on an airplane.
• Don't expect water in other states to be tasteless. Sometimes it has that burnt, swamp water flavor.
• Do NOT jump over the pole in the Star Tours line, even though there are a total of zero other people in the line, which would make you think the ride operators wouldn't care.
• Do tell your sister she won't get that wet on a water ride that basically hits you with hoses.
• Don't accidentally take pictures of other people's children while trying to get a snapshot of theme park characters, it's just awkward for everyone.

She would make a great Cho Chang I think.

There are more, but I think it would be more beneficial to the individual/funny to the rest of the world for people to figure them out on their own.

--Shae

Study Break

Finals. They are unbelievably close. There are a lot of people with much harder classes than I have, but I still feel like I pretty much do nothing but study. Which is totally fine with me; I just want to do well in this school thing, and to earn that delicious-sounding three-week Christmas break. But I think I can justify taking a few breaks every now and then. You know, to do important stuff. Like designing my perfect engagement ring from Tiffany's.

It's the one carat Round Brilliant with Pear-Shaped Side Stones, in case you didn't want to follow the link. Starting at $12,700. No big deal.

Self-Discovery

Its not always the funnest thing. I have recently discovered an aspect of my character that I don't like. I don't want it to exist, and I don't want the reason I discovered it to exist either. But, such is life, and I guess the only thing I can do is to look at the sunny(er) side—now that I know it's there, I can do my best to overcome.

One of my new favorite sayings. I like the story behind it as well.

"Didn't I Teach You Anything, Jim?"

"Yes, Basie, you taught me that people will do anything for a potato."

I am thankful that I have never had to learn this lesson.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Jim and Basie, Empire of the Sun
If you have never seen this movie, you really need to. I own and love it.
And I haven't seen it since at least this summer, so I need to watch it again anyway.

Apples to Apples

You told me about this earlier

Then it reminded me of something my brother did once

Not as cute, but still made me smile

--Shae

But Seriously, What WAS That?

I really like it when I come on to post, and find that we have been having similar thoughts.
For some reason I have been thinking about this SNL clip for the last week or so. Maybe its because I have also been on an Arcade Fire kick and so the song kind of gets stuck in my head. Honestly, it might be kind of an irreverent/disrespectful way to look at these terrible events. But living in my own cushy world, I can in no way fathom these things happening. Trying to think about it makes me want to say a lot of bad words. I'll try to stick to "cuss." And so I join with Andy Samberg in saying "Really, what the cuss, humanity? Why?" I don't think I'll ever really understand, and the part that makes me even more upset is that I feel like there is absolutely nothing I can do about any of the world's serious problems.
Someday, I hope I will find a way to make a difference.

"Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection." 

--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter From a Birmingham Jail"

Not for a second do I suppose that I have been through anything as terrible as that of the people who suffered, like Dr. King, from the ugliness that people are so capable of. I do, however, believe that I have tasted of the heartache that can come from people's pride or close-mindedness. It is this that connects me with these people I'm learning about while studying the Civil Rights Movement. After all, didn't Dr. King want us to realize that all of us, no matter our race, feel pain just like anyone else? 
I hope to someday be able to meet this man.
--Shae

Laughter

It really is the best medicine.

Twilight and Cheese Puffs

In honor of the release of Breaking Dawn, the latest installment of the Twilight Saga, my roommate has been watching the first three movies all week. Which means I have been watching them, kind of (I feel sort of bad when I laugh really hard at moments when I don't think I'm supposed to). And although I have always sort of prided myself in just not being that into Twilight, there is a kind of metaphor which I'm fairly sure has been used before to describe the series that has struck me as true. You know those cheese puff things? I think they are called cheese puffs. I don't really like them. They are in no way satisfying or even really that good tasting to me. I myself would probably never go out and buy them; I know that they are pretty much crap, with no real value, and I don't agree with anything that they stand for. Fundamentally, I am totally against cheese puffs. However, if there are a lot of cheese puffs in front of me, and I have nothing better to do, and everyone around is eating cheese puffs, I will probably eat them. And I will probably find it hard to stop. All of this is true of Twilight.

  equals

I have found myself thinking dangerous things while watching these movies, like "I just really need a guy to write me a beautiful piano song...and to love me forever unconditionally even when I am boring and stupid like this chick." But I will not be sucked in. I will stay strong.

TMI? Debatable

It is possible that I have been unintentionally participating in
No-Shave November.

Sometimes I feel bad for my future children.

--Shae

Look-Alikes

Out of nowhere today, I remembered this picture my sister sent to me that her friend, who was living in Georgia at the time, found and thought this girl looked like me. I want to find her and see if we really do look similar...

My secret model twin. I bet we all have one if we looked hard enough. Also, I really want her dress. 

I Am Sick

And it is the worst. I have thought that a lot of things before were the worst, and it turns out that being sick is actually the worst, because all those other things can still happen in addition to being sick. Its not like its anything life-threatening, or even that big of a deal, just a very sore throat and a fever, and a headache and a faceache and slight earache and some wonky dreams. And it sucks being sick on your own because you have to bring yourself crackers and sprite, although this was made slightly easier by the vending machine down the hall that I stumbled to after waking up in the middle of the night. Did I bring this upon myself by spending a majority of yesterday outside in the snow and cold? Probably. Do I regret it? No. And it probably won't last long, I've been eating at least one orange a day to prepare for this. So here's to a speedy recovery (at this point I toasted my laptop with my Sprite bottle; I hope its the sick that is making me this weird....ok, its probably not.)

EDIT: Googled "carbonation sore throat" and it actually makes it worse. At least I have the internet to take care of me.

Idaho is Too Great to Litter

These are the words that welcomed me into the great state that I find myself in tonight. Driving for two hours by yourself allows you to focus on a lot of things, like people driving around you and signs posted along the way.
     For example, I happened to pass a girl driving the exact same (for lack of a better word) crap car that I drive, same color and everything. I kid you not, we both looked at each other and laughed in the split second we passed, not a happy laugh, but more of an "I-feel-your-pain" kind of laugh. If that's even a thing.
     Then I passed through magical places like Swan Lake, Idaho. My personal favorite sight was that of an Adopt-A-Highway sign. Unfortunately, the "a" had come off the word "Virginia" on the title of the group who took care of this particular road. It read "Cared for by the Virgini LDS Scouts." Why do bad things happen to good, highway-adopting people?
     Anyway, it was a nice little road trip, except for the fact that my voice is a little hoarse right now from singing so loud the whole way here. Maybe I shouldn't have admitted that. Oh well.

Yes, the president is holding a heart-shaped potato.

Idaho: love it, love it, dig it, dove it.
--Shae

People And Things I Have Personally Been Compared To By Other People Throughout My Life Either For My Appearance Or For Other Characteristics

• Toby from The Office
• Phil Dunphy from Modern Family
• A poodle
• Michael Cera in most of his roles, most notably as George Michael Bluth
• A polygamist
• A Barbie
• Kristen Stewart as Bella from Twilight
• A cocker spaniel
• A cat
• Sid the Sloth from Ice Age
• A harlot
• Juno, from the movie Juno
• Beth and Mary, the piano-playing sisters whose lives aren't that great from Little Women and Pride and Prejudice, respectively.
• A princess
• Hermione Granger
• "Someone who doesn't really party that often"

Dogsickness

I miss my dog.

Uhh...

Am I the only one who thinks this is a really weird album cover? For so many reasons, some of which I can't even put my finger on. Ha ha. There is a joke in there somewhere. I'll let you find it.

The Art of Intimidation

Today, I was walking past the on-campus elementary school to get to a class. I passed a group of first-graders and one of the little guys yelled,"She's scaryyyy!" while pointing to me. Little did he know that as I tried to weave through kids playing tag and trying to aim drop kicks toward each other, I was thinking the exact same thing about all of them. Looks like we're even, little boy.
--Shae

Name Pains

Yesterday, a guy named Ahmed told me my name means "something" in Arabic (it was kind of awkward when I asked, "Okay, what does it mean?" and he said, "Something." Then I said, "What?" and he said, "Something!" and that went on for about five minutes...)
Then, another guy at another place asked me what my name was and I told him, which resulted in him trying to suppress his laughter. After he saw my puzzled face, he apologized: "I'm sorry, but in Mongolian, Shae means 'pee.'" We both laughed for a minute, and then he said, "Don't worry; I have a friend named Shaylie, and in Mongolian, that means 'I pee.'" I decided not to tell him my middle name is Lee, mostly so he wouldn't feel any worse.
Moral of the story: The ability to laugh at yourself comes in handy sometimes.
Other moral of the story: Do your research before naming your kids.

--Pee

Dear Victoria's Secret

 Q: (from my inbox) What kind of [Victoria's Secret] Angel are you?

 A: Actually, I don't really look much like ANY of your so-called Angels.

There were a lot of pictures I could potentially insert here. I chose none of them.

Rain, Rain

So I just discovered this great way to listen to music, which has apparently been a thing for a while, but I'm just getting on the bandwagon. You take a sad, slow song, just the right kind of rainy day song, and you listen to it while simultaneously listening to a rainstorm (I've tried out a few recordings; my personal  favorite is RainyMood). It's great. I've got a rainy mood playlist going, which includes Nicest Thing by Kate Nash (the song that led me to this whole discovery), Another Lonely Day by Ben Harper, Brooklyn by The Kooks, and basically anything by Elliott Smith. I could go on but I'm sick of hyperlinking. Hopefully I don't rain myself out.

The Language of Love

I'm not the type of person who really likes those quizzes and surveys that tell you what type of person you are, or what you should be doing with your life, based on your favorite color and vacation spot. I may have a lot of things that I probably waste too much time doing, but reading Cosmo and filling out the couples personality and relationship quizzes is not one of them (there could be one other glaringly obvious reason for that one, but...). I don't have anything against people who do, I've just never felt I've gained anything valuable from one. But the other day I was with two of my sisters and they started talking about the "Five Love Languages" and which language they were, and so on. This really surprised me; it didn't seem like the sort of thing that either of them would really care about (not love, but a survey to tell them how they love...ok, I think you know what I mean) Then I kept thinking about the things they said. Which, of course, led to me taking this "assessment." I guess its like a big thing, like there are like books and people give presentations on it and so on. And it was pretty much just as cheesy and sappy as I thought it would be, but I'm actually glad I took it. Sometimes its good to learn in a more concrete way things that you probably already knew. And I learned that my love language (not just romantic love, but in general everyone I care about) is Quality Time. I like to do things, give people my time to show them I care, and I suppose that that is the way I perceive if people care about me.
I thought by the end of writing this that I would have figured out even more about myself and my thoughts on the subject, which happens a lot. But I can't really think of what more to say. Except that I guess, if you are reading this, and I want to spend time with you, then you are important to me. Congratulations!

I felt I should add a picture of something pertaining to love. Someday, I want this.  This  picture might not  mean a whole to other people, I don't know,  but I have created a great back-story for them in my mind in which "I" am a part of "them", and their life is awesome.

Another Way to Spend Too Much Time on the Internet

http://ispyafamousface.tumblr.com/
--Shae

Greatest Idea Ever

I think the world would be a better place if we all just did this for a few months:

Let's start now.

Thank You?

I was just informed by my friend that when I get ready for the day, she wonders, "What's the occasion?" ...sigh.
--Shae

Some Things Just Hit You

"There are more ways to be good than bad. We just don't exercise the goodness that's instilled in us."

--Shae

Haters

Why is it that no matter what video I watch on Youtube, there is always a handful of people that have disliked it, no matter what it's about?
I dislike this.

--Shae